Snow! by Chris M. '12

All around North America, it’s been a pretty snowless winter. Some people are excited by that, because the cold, bleak winter is a tough time for them and the less snow, the more they can deny winter exists. For me though, it’s tragic. Snow is one of my favorite things, and winter is probably my favorite season. I’m just not built for the beaches and heat. Sunburns suck, sand doesn’t do it for me, and the heat is just tougher for me to handle. The cold though, especially up in the mountains, is invigorating. The hush, the electric cold tingling your lungs with every breath; soft fluffy powder (you NE folks will just have to imagine what I mean) and vistas unrivalled. Yes, I was meant for the mountains.

So imagine my disappointment when I’m eagerly waiting for a huge storm to blow in, skis in hand, and it never happens. After the massive amounts of snow we had around here last year, it was torture. I had resigned that  this would be the year we had no winter. And for a long time, it looked like I would be right. We in the outdoors club even called off our “Winter Circus” trip this weekend because, well, it didn’t look like there was going to be any winter!

But if there’s one thing to describe Boston’s weather more than “terrible” (no offense New England, just not my scene), it’s “weird”. And weirdly enough, on the first day of March we had our first big-ish snowstorm. Of course now school is in full swing and I’m running full-tilt to try and get things done to graduate in June (eeep! real world! yikes!) so there’s no way I can sneak off to the mountains for a few runs. Grumble grumble.

Of course all things in due time, and maybe next year when I have a real-ish job I can spend more time out in the mountains that I love. Heck, if I could do that for my job, that’d be a dream come true. I can’t imagine an engineering position that would be more fulfilling to me right now than designing climbing and ski gear for someone like Black Diamond, who is based out of Salt Lake City a.k.a Park City UT. Fingers crossed.

But since I won’t be out and enjoying the slopes this weekend and thus not transferring that experience to you vicariously, you’ll have to make due with this video I made but never got around to posting from the end of IAP: